Asian graphics card vendor Colorful is at it again with its innovative board designs. This time, the company is after a GeForce GTX 560 Ti (GF114-based) graphics card that boasts of very strong power delivery, and a few mysterious expansion options. Colorful's emphasis has always been on PCB design and choice of high-grade components. This particular card, most likely called the Colorful GTX 560 Ti iGame, is no exception to that. The PCB is particularly long (as much as a GF110-based board).

The additional length is put to use by an innovative arrangement of VRM phases in two rows of four phases. This card employs high-grade chokes with driver-MOSFETs (a component that integrates up/down MOSFETs and driver IC into a single compact package). This 8-phase VRM draws power from three 6-pin power connectors, and can deliver 300W of power to help with record-seeking overclocking feats. There are consolidated voltage measurement points to help manually measure voltages.

The clock speeds of the GPU and memory out of the box are unknown at this point but one can expect them to be pretty high. The card features redundant VGA BIOS loaded into separate EEPROM chips, which can be switched between using a push-switch on the rear-panel. The GF114 GPU is backed by eight Samsung-made 0.4 ns GDDR5 memory chips that are binned to offer the highest overclocking potential.

There are two features on this PCB that are particularly intriguing. On the obverse side, there is what appears to be a mini PCIe slot. We don't know what Colorful plans to use it for, but one can speculate that Colorful could try something similar to Galaxy WHDI, and seat a wireless HD video streaming device there. Moving on to the reverse side, we find another larger slot that looks somewhat like an SO-DIMM slot. We haven't the slightest idea what it could be used for.

All this power demands high-grade cooling, and so Colorful is using a complex heatsink-based cooler. From the GPU base arise 10 heat pipes (arranged in two layers). Five of these bend into a U-shape go to the larger aluminum fin stack with fins stacked parallel to the plane of the motherboard. The other heat pipes pass through a slightly smaller fin stack (over the VRM area), with fins stacked perpendicular to the motherboard's plane. This assembly is ventilated by at least two large (80 mm or more) fans.

As usual, Colorful designs its products for the Asian and European markets.

How is this card pointless? The Asus Mars II was pointless; cost twice as much and was beaten by two 580's in SLI. Not to mention OC. Still, it pushed boundaries, like this card does, and that's good for everybody.

I actually prefer Gainward cards for that reason. Exploring possibilities. Just wish it were easier to get waterblocks for non-reference cards.

stargazer7 said:it's not you thats on your radar honestly. this site has never gotten a single EVGA hardware in its lifetime. wonder why? ATI tool, amd...? thats why they wont provide you. EVGA is the premium of nvidia. they have to do what they tell them to do. so an amd based site wont get EVGA hardware

Not intended as trolling but thats a load of crap TPU has never been and will never be biased to one card or another and EVGA is far from premium they just charge a premium price.

then sorry but you're full of crap. more AMD people come in here than nvidia guys. do i need to quote W1zz on "oh my iphone doesnt support cuda" or "gtx 480 sucks..." ? as for EVGA, premium as in premium OF nvidia. i said they used to be cause they used to have some the best nvidia offerings, and they still have the best connection with nvidia. i read those reviews a few years ago but forgot. if you realized, there's only 3 old reviews. go on Guru3d, they have lots of EVGA reviews. and i regard W1z's reviews as the BEST gpu reviews... yet, we're discussing this. come on.

stargazer7 said:then sorry but you're full of crap. more AMD people come in here than nvidia guys. do i need to quote W1zz on "oh my iphone doesnt support cuda" or "gtx 480 sucks..." ? as for EVGA, premium as in premium OF nvidia. i said they used to be cause they used to have some the best nvidia offerings, and they still have the best connection with nvidia. i read those reviews a few years ago but forgot. if you realized, there's only 3 old reviews. go on Guru3d, they have lots of EVGA reviews. and i regard W1z's reviews as the BEST gpu reviews... yet, we're discussing this. come on.

Even though, TPU is NOT biased. W1zzard might'v told a joke or two about Nvidia. But they are just jokes ! When it comes to real talk, he's using a high end Nvidia card. He's done many reviews of Nvidia Graphics cards. And each reviewing nearly every available brand of the card. Well maybe except EVGA.
EVGA's offerings in the market rarely add much if anything to the table. The only premium thing about them is the price. I've rarely seen EVGA add anything innovative to the industry. Compared to other brands like ASUS, Colorful, MSI, Sparkle, etc, EVGA mostly sells stock cooled reference design cards. And when they do get creative, they slab a new sticker and that's it.
I might be wrong in what I've typed above, but from where I stand, EVGA is far from premium.

Shihabyooo said:Even though, TPU is NOT biased. W1zzard might'v told a joke or two about Nvidia. But they are just jokes ! When it comes to real talk, he's using a high end Nvidia card. He's done many reviews of Nvidia Graphics cards. And each reviewing nearly every available brand of the card. Well maybe except EVGA.
EVGA's offerings in the market rarely add much if anything to the table. The only premium thing about them is the price. I've rarely seen EVGA add anything innovative to the industry. Compared to other brands like ASUS, Colorful, MSI, Sparkle, etc, EVGA mostly sells stock cooled reference design cards. And when they do get creative, they slab a new sticker and that's it.
I might be wrong in what I've typed above, but from where I stand, EVGA is far from premium.

tpu reviews arent biased however forum is amd centric. those werent just jokes so its clear that you havent been here for long. i've been reading this forum for years. have seen enough amd bs. even by himself when he had 4870.

i said EVGA USED to be premium. they had 285 classifieds with digital pwms. best damn 285s. see those reviews posted before? those ACS3 cards owned. EVGA lost their workers and they now suck. you seem to be new to this business. you're also wrong about EVGA position. they still are the biggest seller of nvidia cards in the u.s. they have the best cooperation with nvidia in Cali, their cards go in GF 6 lans. EVGA IS nvidia in one way or another.

stargazer7 said:i said EVGA USED to be premium. they had 285 classifieds with digital pwms. best damn 285s. see those reviews posted before? those ACS3 cards owned. EVGA lost their workers and they now suck. you seem to be new to this business. you're also wrong about EVGA position. they still are the biggest seller of nvidia cards in the u.s. they have the best cooperation with nvidia in Cali, their cards go in GF 6 lans. EVGA IS nvidia in one way or another.

i think that's partly due to just how many brands we used to be able to choose from here in the U.S. as far as nvidia cards. I think it was pretty much just XFX, PNY, and EVGA back in the day in most stores., well and MSI in some stores but i think they mostly did ati/amd. Asus, colorful, sparkle, galaxy, not so much until recently... (tho asus had been here just as long but not in as many stores for w/e reason)

stargazer7 said:tpu reviews arent biased however forum is amd centric. those werent just jokes so its clear that you havent been here for long. i've been reading this forum for years. have seen enough amd bs. even by himself when he had 4870.

i said EVGA USED to be premium. they had 285 classifieds with digital pwms. best damn 285s. see those reviews posted before? those ACS3 cards owned. EVGA lost their workers and they now suck. you seem to be new to this business. you're also wrong about EVGA position. they still are the biggest seller of nvidia cards in the u.s. they have the best cooperation with nvidia in Cali, their cards go in GF 6 lans. EVGA IS nvidia in one way or another.

The forums only express the users opinions, not that of the reviewers.
Since I joined these forums I've rarely came around an instance where someone favoured a side only because he/she is a fanboi/girl. Most of the users around here only care for how much bang for the buck does the card have. And most of these forums dwellers deal with facts, charts and numbers, solid benchmarks. Not just CAPS type "NVIDIA IS OVERPRICED" and "ATI IS SH**" !.
Being the biggest doesn't mean the best. And it sure doesn't give it the right to be titled "Premium". I never denied them the fact that they have impressive sales charts. Good business ties rarely matter for these companies. XFX had a decent thing going between them and Nvidia, that didn't stop the later from kicking them out of the boat, did it ?

it doesnt matter. when you got a site full of AMD guys, you wont get nvidia hardware from nvidia guys. which part of this forum gets attention the most? did you read all that nonsense on bd here? do you know about stuff like this that has happened here before?

find the comment on the right bar then look at it. what does it say? 4890 beats 285... yeah all along... it didnt even beat 275. said by the guy who recently started locking amd threads he doenst like.

xfx's situation with nvidia has nothing to do with evga. EVGA has a better connection than any other company does in San Diego. its not even close. nvidia gives them hand on marketing bulletins, product management. and EVGA has to listen to them. xfx was just a strong nvidia partner. they couldnt sell like BFG so they had to jump ship.

This BD "nonsense" was backed by benchmark results showing that AMD couldn't give what it promised. It wasn't fan flame war. And this is irrelevant to the subject.
I've read many threads on this site asking for recommendations for a build. I've read many AMD/ATI users recommend a GTX580 or a 460 back at the time. People around here know that there's nothing such as a better brand. There's only a hardware with better performance. No one denied the power of th 5970 back then. And no one here is denying the power of the new GTX 580 !
You'll have to forgive me for not looking at your link, we aren't talking about newegg, we're talking about TPU.

Shihabyooo said:This BD "nonsense" was backed by benchmark results showing that AMD couldn't give what it promised. It wasn't fan flame war. And this is irrelevant to the subject.
I've read many threads on this site asking for recommendations for a build. I've read many AMD/ATI users recommend a GTX580 or a 460 back at the time. People around here know that there's nothing such as a better brand. There's only a hardware with better performance. No one denied the power of th 5970 back then. And no one here is denying the power of the new GTX 580 !
You'll have to forgive me for not looking at your link, we aren't talking about newegg, we're talking about TPU.

no it wasnt just that. most of the info has been put by AMD fans. Semiaccurate links and crap. you dont have to act silly to defend this forum. i've been reading here for years, you? this is one of the best forums out in the net. despite, it's been crowded with amd fanboys.

i wont forgive you for talking like you're in a fantasy MMO land.... please go back and look at that link. what does it say just in the right corner? 4890 is 'better' than 285. you know? right on the right comment bar of Newegg? can you make it more deceiving? said by Erocker. its much worse than writing it here. so stop it.

stargazer7 said:no it wasnt just that. most of the info has been put by AMD fans. Semiaccurate links and crap. you dont have to act silly to defend this forum. i've been reading here for years, you? this is one of the best forums out in the net. despite, it's been crowded with amd fanboys.

i wont forgive you for talking like you're in a fantasy MMO land.... please go back and look at that link. what does it say just in the right corner? 4890 is 'better' than 285. you know? right on the right comment bar of Newegg? can you make it more deceiving? said by Erocker. its much worse than writing it here. so stop it.

FYI, that wasn't me personally that left that Newegg review. Now, get back on topic.